Much development work has already been done on vehicles propelled by pneumatic processes, but it has been directed to producing large and very costly craft for operation over water. Little effort seems to have been expended on the problems involved in designing comparatively small vehicles, and especially vehicles for the land or dual land/water role, at an economical cost. Skirt, cockpit and trailering designs are particularly important for small vehicles propelled by pneumatic processes.
In particular, see U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,078,939 to Bollum, Sr.; 3,117,643 to Cockerell; 3,866,707 to Paoli; 3,887,030 to Fitzgerald et al.; 3,891,047 to Rapson; 4,111,276 to Rapson et al.; 4,176,729 to Down; 4,215,757 to Henry et al.; and 4,258,817 to Hunt concerning skirt configurations of vehicles propelled by pneumatic process.
More particularly, Hunt discloses a vehicle propelled by pneumatic process wherein the skirt segments of the segmental skirt can be removed and replaced without getting under the vehicle hull. This arrangement is achieved by providing a tube 13 at each top end of the segment. The inner ends of the tubes are inserted into sockets 31 on the vehicle bottom surface. The outer edge of the skirt segment and the outer ends of the rods or tubes are held against the vehicle structure by a clamping member 22, as shown in FIGS. 1 and 6. Henry et al discloses an attachment device for releasably connecting a flexible skirt 11 to a rigid body structure of an air cushion vehicle having a plurality of first elements attached at spaced positions on the rigid body structure. A plurality of second elements, or independent flexible fingers 17, are attached to the first member, or the bag member 12, to depend downwardly therefrom and form a part of the lower skirt. The clamping arrangement is shown in FIGS. 2 and 3, wherein the inflatable member 12 is retained between clamping face 31 and clamping plate 29. Paoli discloses a skirt configuration for an air cushion vehicle, while Down discloses attachment means for attaching the fingers of a vehicle propelled by pneumatic processes skirt to its loop, as shown in FIGS. 5 and 6. Rapson et al U.S. Pat. No. 3,891,047 and Rapson et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,111,276 disclose additional details for controlling the operation of the vehicle propelled by pneumatic processes skirt. Fitzgerald et al and Cockerell are noted of general interest. Bollum, Sr. discloses a vehicle propelled by pneumatic processes with a depending skirt 81, as shown in FIG. 4. Additionally, Bollum discloses wheels 98 that allow the craft to be moved over land. The skirt is described in column 7, line 67 through column 8, line 22, while the operation of the wheels 98 is described in column 10, lines 13 through 33.
Also, see U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,174,573 to Chaplin; 3,295,864 to Norrby; 3,334,700 to Kennedy et al; 3,810,522 to Morgan et al; and 4,344,635 to Welton, with respect to trailering.
In particular, Norrby discloses a boat trailer having a trailer hitch and wheels 70 that may be rotatably positioned beneath the stern of the vessel to facilitate transport. Morgan et al. discloses a hovercraft wherein ground engaging wheels 13 are utilized by operating props 27 so that the vehicle propelled by pneumatic processes may be raised off the ground during transport. See FIG. 4. Chaplin discloses a vehicle propelled by pneumatic processes wherein wheels 70 are pivoted into and out of engagement with the road surface to enable the transport of the vehicle propelled by pneumatic processes over the ground--See FIGS. 10 and 11. Welton discloses a towbar 10 and wheels 16 for enabling a smal boat to be towed behind a trailer. Kennedy is cited for general interest.
However, in the prior art vehicle propelled by pneumatic processes designs:
(1). They usually have to be transported on land by large special flat bed trailers that were both unwieldly and costly. Loading on and off the trailer was both very time consuming and damaging to the vehicle propelled by pneumatic processes.
(2). Skirts were of the segmented type that required many different shapes for each craft. They leak air at each joint and are difficult to change when damaged. During cold weather operation on snow or water they accumulate so much ice in the finger skirt that they soon become overloaded due to weight of the accumulated ice that they failed to function.
(3). They have open cockpits. This presents serious difficulties during cold weather while operating over water as the craft kicks up a very fine mist of water that saturates anything it comes into contact with including all occupants of the cockpit.
It is an object of this invention to make the commercial utilization of vehicles propelled by pneumatic processes, and especially machines of smaller type, a more attractive and economical proposition.